Electronic – What’s the motivation in using Verilog or VHDL over C

embeddedfirmwarefpgahdlverilog

I come from a programming background and have not messed around too much with hardware or firmware (at most a bit of electronics and Arduino).

What is the motivation in using hardware description languages (HDL) such as Verilog and VHDL over a programming language like C or Assembly language?

Is this a matter of choice?

I read that hardware, which has its firmware written in an HDL, has a clear advantage in running instructions in parallel. However, I was surprised to see discussions expressing doubts whether to write firmware in C or Assembly (how is Assembly appropriate if you don't necessarily have a CPU?) but I concluded it's also an option.

Therefore, I have a few questions (don't hesitate to explain anything):

  1. Can a firmware really be written either in HDL or in a software programming language, or is it just another way to accomplish the same mission? I'd love to have some real-world examples. What constraints result from each option?

  2. I know that a common use of firmware over software is in hardware accelerators (such as GPUs, network adapters, SSL accelerators, etc). As I understand it, this acceleration is not always necessary, but only recommended (for example, in the case of SSL and acceleration of complex algorithms). Can one choose between firmware and software in all cases? If not, I'd be happy to know the cases in which firmware is clearly and unequivocally appropriate.

  3. I've read that the firmware is mostly burned on ROM or flash. How it is represented in there? In bits, like software? If so, what's the profound difference? Is it the availability of adapted circuits in the case of firmware?

I guess I made a mistake here and there in some assumptions, please forgive me. Thank you!

Best Answer

What is the motivation in using hardware description languages (HDL) such as Verilog and VHDL over programming languages like C or some Assembly?

C and assembly are good languages for telling a CPU what to do. They describe actions to be done sequentially by a single state machine.

HDLs are good languages for describing or defining an arbitrary collection of digital circuits. They can express operations done in parallel in ways that programming languages can't. They can also describe timing limitations for the interfaces between blocks in ways that programming languages can't.

I was surprised to see discussions expressing doubts whether to write firmware in C or Assembly (how is Assembly appropriate if you don't necessarily have a CPU?)

In that question, what's asked is, "If you are writing code for a microcontroller is there a real difference if you write in assembly or C or some other high level language?".

Since he's specifically asking about systems with a microcontroller (a CPU with peripherals), C or assembly are both reasonable choices for firwmare development, and HDL's are not.

A firmware really can be written either in HDL or in a software programming language, or it's just another way to perform the same mission?

It depends what kind of hardware you have. If you have a CPU, use a programming language. If you have an FPGA or you're designing an ASIC, use an HDL. If you are designing a very large amount of digital logic, you can look to one of the in-between languages like SystemVerilog.

I've read that the firmware mostly burned on ROM or flash. How it is represented in there? In bits, like software? If so, what's the profound difference? Is it the availability of adapted circuits in the case of firmware?

I think you are getting hung up on the term "firmware". This word originally meant code to be run on an embedded system, that wasn't accessible for the end user to change. If you sold somebody a PC, there's a very high chance that the user would change what software is run on it. If you sold them an oscilloscope, you wouldn't want them to change the code that's run on the internal microprocessor, so you called it firmware.

FPGA users appropriated the word "firmware" for the output of their designs, because it is more changeable than hardware (stuff that's soldered together). But really the "firmware" that configures an FPGA is different from the "firmware" that runs on a uC. uC firmware directs the uC through a series of states to perform it's function. FPGA firmware defines a set of interconnections between logic elements, and values to be stored in look-up tables.

In either case, the firmware is typically stored as bits on an eeprom (or on disk on a host machine that will donwload it whenever the embedded system is re-started). But that doesn't make them similar to each other.

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